Edinburgh, Scotland

Okay, so I went to Scotland a week and a half ago, but due to the fact that I had 3 papers due in a five day span I was unable to write, however here it goes.

We left on Thursday night from Bath on a train to Edinburgh, however, a few days earlier we noticed that we had a 6 hour stop over in Birmingham in the middle of the night therefore we got a hotel room for the night, I think I might have gotten 3.5 hours of sleep. Nonetheless I slept on the train from Birmingham to Edinburgh and we arrived there around 10 a.m. on Friday. We had trouble finding our hostel because we got off the wrong train station so we had to walk twice as far, but that was fine. Later that day we went on a free walking tour of the city, which was amazing. I don't think we would of found out some much about the city if we just wandered, but the tour was over 3 hours long and I just knew that I would sleep well that night. All of us then decided to go on a whiskey tour, which you go on this little ride and sit in a whiskey barrel and see how whiskey is made and then we tried whiskey which I found out that I do not enjoy. After we went to dinner and then went to the hostel and went to bed fairly early.

On Saturday, we walked along the Royal mile where there are a lot of shops and restaurants. We had lunch and then decided that we wanted to find Arthur's seat because we heard from one of our program advisor's that it was a must to do in Edinburgh, we walked to the end of the Royal mile and there it was.

Now this may not look like that bad of a walk, but I was out of breath at some points due to it being steep, but the view of the city that we got was breathtaking and I am glad that we did it. After that some of us went are different ways but met up later. I went to a thing called People's story where it talks about how people lived and worked in the city back in the 1800's to the 1960's. Then we all met up to go to Mary King's Close and a close is a narrow alleyway and this close was underneath the current city. We got to see how people lived during the plague and what their houses were like, it was very interesting. Later that night we went on a pub crawl, which was okay but I was rather tired so I went back to the hostel early in the night, however, other people in our room were rather loud therefore I did not get much sleep!

Sunday one of the girls and I went to the Royal Yacht Britannia while the other three girls went to the castle.

The Yacht was so interesting, plus the Royal family lived on it from time to time when they had to sail places. This picture is a model of the boat, since I was unable to get the whole boat in one picture. I think we walked around the boat for almost two hours with a self guided audio guide. After we grabbed something to eat in the food court since the boat was located right outside of the mall, fascinating! We then decided to go see a movie instead of being a tourist for the rest of the day and I believe that was a good decision. The day was coming to a close and we needed to get back to the hostel in order to get our stuff and get to the airport since taking the train would have been to long, however, we still did not back home, I guess Bath is my home now but only for a little over a month, until midnight. Overall it was a fun trip and I enjoyed myself.

Now onto other news! My dad is coming in a little over a week and I am super excited to see him and travel to London and Amsterdam with him. Also, my mom, sister and Aunt are coming in a month which is also very exciting. This is the perfect time for them to be coming since all of my papers are done and I am starting to get a little homesick but also mixed emotion about leaving Bath, but I still have time to enjoy it and that is just what I am going to do. Last night I booked my flights to Rome and Venice with my sister and we are going to be there for a week just the two of us. What a good way to end my semester abroad before I have to head back to the states and start working again. One little side note that I forgot to mention early was that I tried oranges over here for the first time (no I am not kidding) and I fell in love, I now have an orange every day, oh the things I am experience while I am abroad! I will write soon!!

Love to all,

Monica